A Sad Day for Stalky's Plants

The plants in happier times...

I'm ashamed, disappointed, close to devastated, to admit that all but one of my plants have died since moving to the city.  This turn of events has me deeply saddened.  My plants have kicked the bucket and sloped off to the compost heap in the sky.  Considering all the things we went through - horned caterpillars of doom, the first blossoming of potential lemons, chillies that finally turned red, tomatoes that planned world domination - it feels like a great loss to me to finally admit that yes indeed they are all dead.  And at first I blamed myself.  I had traumatised them with the move.  I had neglected to introduce them to the new neighbourhood.  But honestly, I didn't understand what had gone wrong.  The watering schedule had been adjusted according to season and they were still being fed regularly.  I continued to talk to them and offer them words of support.  But leaves began to wilt, branches began to fall and I watched in horror as my army of plants toppled over.  Even the mighty mint has perished.  The mighty mint that grew into such a beast.  The only survivor is the rosemary and he now has pride of place on the balcony where I'm determined to keep him going.  The sad thing is I still haven't managed to let my lemon tree go.  Even though the leaves are all gone and the branches are brown I still check to see if anything might be blossoming.  I have discussed my woes with Rabby who concluded that the demise of my plants is most likely due to the positioning of our new balcony.  The plants died because they weren't getting enough sunlight.  The one thing I can't control (short of moving again) is the positioning of the damned balcony.  So for now I'm having to put my green thumbs on hold until me move again to sunnier lands where the plants can live in peace.  I still have my indoor plants - the peace lily and the unidentified dangly thing - and the rosemary is still going strong.  For now this will have to do.

Pavement Rage

Having gone from walking to work in a small coastal town, I now walk to work through the big city.  I walk to the bus stop, get the bus and then walk from the bus stop to work.  I figure my walk through the city is about fifteen minutes depending on weather, green traffic lights and the height of heel I've opted for on that particular day.  What I've come to realise over these past few months is that pedestrian traffic is almost as annoying as vehicular traffic.  And one can experience pavement rage, much in the way that one can experience road rage.  People are annoying.  For someone with fairly little legs I tend to walk quite swiftly.  I figure if you're going somewhere then you might as well get there in decent time and give your legs a work out whilst you're at it.  But there is always someone waiting in the wings to thwart my plan.  Some dawdler, some zig zagger, some slow coach who wouldn't know a green man if it bit him on the bum!  Just like driving on the road you get bumblers who sit in the fast lane, people who cut you up, people who switch lanes with no warning, people who crash into the back of you, people who stop with no warning and people whose reaction to the lights (or in this case the man) turning green is so slow that the precious window of time when it's your right of way is wasted.  Wasted!  And then of course there are cyclists.  And you must get out of their way because even if they're the ones cycling on the pavement and they're the ones speeding along, if you fail to get out of the way then you will get hit.  Being a pedestrian has never been so stressful!